How Did The Dutch Colonialism Change Indonesia?
The Dutch established Java as the center of the East Indies, which explains why Java is the economic, political and most populous island in Indonesia. Well, the Dutch did both good and bad things like all colonial masters. Some of the good things were the development of roads, infastructure, closer interaction between Western and Eastern culture and education for a small elite of natives. Christian missionaries also won converts among the Bataks, Ambonese and Papuans. Some of the bad things were the exploitation of Indonesian resources and labour for the profit of the home country, a racially-based social hierarchy with the Europeans on top followed by Eurasians, Orientals and Indonesians, discrimination against Eurasians and non-whites in jobs in the civil service and military, and the vast economic gulf between the colonizer and the colonized. Well, the Dutch were not able to foster strong postwar and post-colonial economic and cultural ties with Indonesia as the British and American
